the all aussie dribble thread!

[ausneil 1]

i went & had a look at the swingsaw & bench when it was for sale, i didn't see any slabs laying around which are normally the bulk of the sleeper waste, it is mainly blackbutt country so maybe the tallowood & white mahogany was cut out first long ago, the mill equipment was flogged out & only really worth scrap value. apparently she got 7 grand for it which would have doubled by the time it was operational again & the swingsaw was beyond fixing, i looked at a 36" breast bench a couple of weeks beforehand with a 50hp electric motor, double sided metric trewella gauge, rails & trolleys in working condition that went for $1000, so it was way over priced.
fansk

Small world is it not, i lived and worked in the Coffs district for many years, was a lot of little mills scattered about, most are long gone today, Parks have took a hell of a lot of state forest land too.
From what i remember the mill was very basic, had a blitse to lift the logs, maybe an old case loader there too, can't remember now.
Your right about the Black butt, also a lot of Flooded gum on the flats and gullies too, there is a lot of hard wood there as well. Just west of there a couple of Km's is LJ Williams p/l poll yard and saw mill, still going strong.

Yes these old benches are not worth much money, even with a dunsten friction box, basicly scrap value. My own working Grey bench with good 680 leyland engine won't be worth much and its working every day. Worth a lot more to me working.

 

[ausneil 1]

Nice
I hope your not puttin bullets in that tree for some poor old wood cutter to stuff his chains on.

Yep that single tree is getting lead and copper injections.

 

[Bwildered]

Small world is it not, i lived and worked in the Coffs district for many years, was a lot of little mills scattered about, most are long gone today, Parks have took a hell of a lot of state forest land too.
From what i remember the mill was very basic, had a blitse to lift the logs, maybe an old case loader there too, can't remember now.
Your right about the Black butt, also a lot of Flooded gum on the flats and gullies too, there is a lot of hard wood there as well. Just west of there a couple of Km's is LJ Williams p/l poll yard and saw mill, still going strong.

Yes these old benches are not worth much money, even with a dunsten friction box, basicly scrap value. My own working Grey bench with good 680 leyland engine won't be worth much and its working every day. Worth a lot more to me working.

Half of my mates did their apprenticeships at Isles Forge & i used to share a house with a guy that worked for willliams to the east a few ks, now the coffs harbour hardwoods show to the west a few ks is something on a whole different scale, 90 people work there. you would know the local saying then in the local timber industry, every second seccombe is a seccombe.
tanks

 

[chippy]

what do you call a cubic meter? a tonne of timber or the amount of split timber that will fit into a m3? i sell firewood & try to get as much as i can for it! its hard work!

A ton of Redgum works out around 2.2 to 2.4 cu mtrs when it's less than 20% MC. I don't often get much Redgum, lots of stringy though.

I have a cubic meter steal frame I can load into if I need to use that but I mostly just stack it neatly and tightly in the 9 x 5 trailer. I have texta marks up the side of the trailer which shows the exact volume if filled to that height. I then fill it to that mark then throw a couple of extra logs in.

I split it more than what deye has in his pics.

It's not easy selling it when my competition advertise it from $85 a cubic mtr delivered but when you buy it from those sellers and stack it at home, if you buy say 4 mtrs and then stack it neatly you would be lucky to get 3 once stacked....so I use that as my selling point and warn everyone that most won't give you what you pay for and you'll really be paying somewhere around $140/mtr once you stack it.
$140/mtr is I think a fair price anyway although I sell it a bit cheaper as I now have way too much of it.

 

[KiwiBro]

8's are not available in oz/nz. They supersede to 7's. Only way would be to get some .404 8z's and grind them down. This has been done with 7z .404's to picco 3/8 before. There is a thread about it for blokes using standard/large spline runs on 660's with picco for milling/logosol mills

Thanks Bennie. Never knew there was a mini-spline .404 rim option. Sounds like a plan to grind/turn 'em down. Is it 39.5mm diameter for 3/8LP? I don't have a lathe but could probably red-neck it with grinder or belt sander and drill press somehow. Or just take a few into someone who has the gear and knows how to use it, and spec it to a certain diameter.

If there is no mini spline option, then is there a small spline drum that would fit the 241, assuming there is a small spline 8z .404 rim?

What about an 8-tooth spur drum?

Are many CS millers turning down .404 rims to run picco? If so, is it the liability issue that halted the 8z option - because they are using more HP than the chain can 'legally' take, so Stihl didn't want to be seen as encouraging it, or is there just not enough demand for such a 8z option? Or maybe there is one in small but not mini spline?

If there's enough people wanting such, I'm sure we could get someone like Danzco (or someone closer to oz/nz) to make or turn a batch, no liability expressed or implied.

 

[KiwiBro]

Its funny i have been floggy wood for 12 years and the price never goes up but everything to do with cutting wood has ?.

I had to get up in the morning at ten o'clock at night, half an hour before I went to bed, eat a lump of cold poison, work twenty-nine hours a day down mill, and pay mill owner for permission to come to work, and when we got home, our Dad would kill us, and dance about on our graves singing "Hallelujah."

All Monty Python aside, next Winter's wood is set to drop in price as every third or fourth dairy farmhand has been laid off straight after calving because there's no $ in this years payout here. Some rather desperate people in rural NZ this season.

 

[KiwiBro]

It's interesting how each country approaches the legal weights/measure for firewood sales. It looks like you guys can sell it by weight or volume but the latter has to be stacked, whereas here we have both thrown and stacked, with thrown being the assumed volume measure unless stacked is stated.

 

[2strokenut]

It's interesting how each country approaches the legal weights/measure for firewood sales. It looks like you guys can sell it by weight or volume but the latter has to be stacked, whereas here we have both thrown and stacked, with thrown being the assumed volume measure unless stacked is stated.

stacked is by volume and thrown is by weight down here in Tas

 

[2strokenut]

found this cool i wonder how much it would cost http://leadshotmachine.com

 

[KiwiBro]

stacked is by volume and thrown is by weight down here in Tas

Do those selling by weight have certified weigh scales and use 'em for each sale, or perhaps they rolled over a set a few times, each with a different species of wood on board to know what that volume of wood will weigh?

The issue I have with weights, is while I think it's probably the most accurate measure, if MC is known, of heat value, scales are often not used, not accurate, and the moisture content varies, and is open to the most abuse by the firewood cowboys because the end user seldom has scales, or knows how to work out the moisture content, to verify they are getting what they ordered.

Volume seems so much easier as users can tell pretty easily if the order is short. Still a bit tricky for 'em to check moisture content. I guess that's where a seller's track record comes into play.

 

[2strokenut]

the ones the sell by weight are trucks with built in scales the rest sell stacked

 

[chippy]

I'm not interested in selling by weight as the weighbridge is about 35 km from my place.....and I'd get done for overloading.

I work out its moisture content the easy way....if I felled it wet, that is not dead, then it will be dry enough to burn (less than 20% MC) as follows;

Length of log divided by 2 equals minimum days to dry.

So a log cut 400 mm long needs 200 days to reach less than 25% which is good enough to burn and a bit more for 20% moisture content, which is even better....leave it outside in the rain unsplit and it seems to dry best....split it when green and then dry it outdoors it starts to rot too fast and off gasses the carbon.....2 yrs and it starts to go down hill and loses weight but not from moisture but rot. Once I split it I stick it out of the rain so it doesn't rot so fast.

If the tree has been dead for years before I fell it and cut it into logs, it will never likely drop below 20% as the moisture becomes trapped in the tree because the structure of the cells that make up the pathway for the moisture to escape typically collapse, which means it can never really dry out properly by air drying.

I have a lot of felled dead timber, it burns really slow and a lot of people like that, but it doesn't throw out much heat cause it's too wet.

 

[Creeker]

Great thank you, I think I need to invest in a loop considering I pay $40-$50 per 20" loop


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Maybe just buy a 25ft roll and see what you think, less outlay for a young bloke to get started after buying
the spinner/breaker at the same time.

 

[Creeker]

Received 2 x 25" 404 - 063 GB cutter bars from LEFT COAST SUPPLIES yesterday, Aussie made in original packaging labelled T25-63VQ, Titanium Pro Top.
Worked out round $90/ea delivered to local Post Office.

Gregg at L.C.S. now has PAYPAL for those that use it, it's easiest IMO and maintained excellent communications throughout the transaction, very impressed
with the outcome once we sorted the payment method.

Gregg advised they were shipped on 18/09 with tracking number and they were in the P.O. here 24/09 which is pretty impressive.

LEFT COAST SUPPLIES is a site sponsor

 

[Creeker]

hmmmm last i looked it was 6' x 6' x 18" well thats what i have done for the last 15 years

Just did some multiplication out of curiosity, cubic metre is a shade under 61,000 cubic inches, 6ft x 6ft x 1ft is a shade over 62,000 cubic inches.

 

[KiwiBro]

If the tree has been dead for years before I fell it and cut it into logs, it will never likely drop below 20% as the moisture becomes trapped in the tree because the structure of the cells that make up the pathway for the moisture to escape typically collapse, which means it can never really dry out properly by air drying.

I have a lot of felled dead timber, it burns really slow and a lot of people like that, but it doesn't throw out much heat cause it's too wet.

Noticed that here too. But really depends on if it stays standing and if the micro climate is humid or dry.

Fastest cheap way I have of drying dense rings is bag 'em and leave the bags in the river for at least a week before wind-rowing the bags. Dries much faster than the controls. But is only good on a small scale for the local farmer, etc, who wants dry wood for the upcoming Winter from trees dropped at the start of the Summer. Run out of river otherwise.

Have wondered how short the immersion therapy could be to still get worthwhile gains. A few days might be commercially viable, but then not sure of the downstream consequences of doing it on a big scale.

 

[KiwiBro]

Received 2 x 25" 404 - 063 GB cutter bars from LEFT COAST SUPPLIES yesterday, Aussie made in original packaging labelled T25-63VQ, Titanium Pro Top.
Worked out round $90/ea delivered to local Post Office.

Gregg at L.C.S. now has PAYPAL for those that use it, it's easiest IMO and maintained excellent communications throughout the transaction, very impressed
with the outcome once we sorted the payment method.

Gregg advised they were shipped on 18/09 with tracking number and they were in the P.O. here 24/09 which is pretty impressive.

LEFT COAST SUPPLIES is a site sponsor

Thanks for the reminder. Will check local post office today.

 

[KiwiBro]

the ones the sell by weight are trucks with built in scales the rest sell stacked

Around here if they were carting logs, those would be the first trucks a mill would put on their own scales to verify.

 

[pioneer saws]

Nice
I hope your not puttin bullets in that tree for some poor old wood cutter to stuff his chains on.

I will be that poor old woodcutter.
That trees days are numbered, its dead in the middle and has started to split in 2, i dont park the Hilux under it anymore when i nail up my targets.

 

[chippy]

Noticed that here too. But really depends on if it stays standing and if the micro climate is humid or wet.

Fastest cheap way I have of drying dense rings is bag 'em and leave the bags in the river for at least a week before wind-rowing the bags. Dries much faster than the controls. But is only good on a small scale for the local farmer, etc, who wants dry wood for the upcoming Winter from trees dropped at the start of the Summer. Run out of river otherwise.

Have wondered how short the immersion therapy could be to still get worthwhile gains. A few days might be commercially viable, but then not sure of the downstream consequences of doing it on a big scale.

A mate of mine uses the immersion method....he drops the limbed trunk into the river on his property for a few months and then pulls it out, cuts it up on the spot, splits it and within 6 months of felling he has pretty dry timber...he says it dries about twice as fast....

From what I can gather it does, as the water keeps the capillaries open and it dries out super fast.